While Clayface will be the new DC Comics cinematic universe’s first villain-focused movie when it oozes into theaters this fall, there’s another film in the works that will star one of the publisher’s most gruesome twosomes. And while there hasn’t been any news on that front for over a year, it looks like the project has just made a big step forward, with directors now being considered to helm the film. One of them has some experience in James Gunn‘s new world of gods and monsters: he’s previously directed episodes of the HBO Max series Peacemaker.
According to reports, director Greg Mottola is considered a front-runner to helm a film which will center around longtime comics bad guys Bane and Deathstroke. Mottola broke out with 2007’s Superbad, and has gone on to helm comedies like Adventureland, Keeping Up with the Joneses, and, most recently, Confess, Fletch. He’s also a prolific TV director, with episodes of Arrested Development, The Comeback, and Nobody Wants This under his belt; he also directed the pilot for NBC‘s new reboot of The Rockford Files with David Boreanaz. Most relevantly, he directed the second and third episodes of last year’s season 2 of Peacemaker, a spin-off of Gunn‘s The Suicide Squad starring John Cena as a chrome-helmeted super-soldier. While details on the Bane/Deathstroke movie have been sparse so far, and the project has not yet been officially announced by the studio, the film’s script is reportedly by Matthew Orton (Cleaner).
Who Are Deathstroke and Bane?
Deathstroke the Terminator, alias Slade Wilson, was created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez in 1980’s New Teen Titans #2. He is a one-eyed mercenary and assassin who has bedeviled the Teen Titans, and Dick Grayson in particular, for years; in his deadliest plot, he infiltrated the team with a double agent, the earth-moving Terra, in the “Judas Contract” comics storyline. He was previously portrayed on the big screen by Joe Manganiello in 2017’s Justice League. Bane, alias Eduardo Dorrance, was created by Chuck Dixon, Doug Moench, and Graham Nolan in 1993’s Batman: Vengeance of Bane #1. Sentenced to life in a brutal Caribbean prison as a child for his father’s crimes, Dorrance trained his body and his mind to confront and battle the bat-like spectre that had haunted his dreams since childhood. After he was enhanced with the experimental steroid Venom, he escaped prison and confronted the personification of his perceived nemesis: Batman. He famously broke Batman’s back in the seminal “Knightfall” storyline. He was first portrayed in live-action by professional wrestler Jeep Swenson in 1997’s Batman and Robin, and was later adapted as a gas-masked terrorist in The Dark Knight Rises, where he was played by Tom Hardy.
DC‘s upcoming slate includes Supergirl this summer, Clayface this fall, and the Superman/Lex Luthor team-up film Man of Tomorrow in the summer of 2027. Beyond that, the studio’s plans are nebulous.
A Bane/Deathstroke movie is allegedly in the works.
via Collider